René Magritte (Belgian, 1898–1967)
The Treachery of Images (La Trahison des images), 1929
Oil on canvas; 60 × 81 cm (23 5/8 × 317/8 in.)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles. Purchased with funds provided by the Mr. and Mrs. William Preston HarrisonCollection.
© Charly Herscovici – ADAGP – ARS, 2014
“Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938” – MoMA videos
Magritte: Mystery of the Ordinary – Art Institute Chicago The exhibition ‘Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary’ makes its final stop at the Art Institute of Chicago following its runs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Menil Collection, Houston. June 24 – October 13, 2014.]]>
Source: Art Institute of Chicago
The period of 1926–1938 was Magritte’s most prolific. It was a time of bold experimentation that cemented his reputation as a leading Surrealist painter. The exhibition begins with paintings and works on paper he created in 1926 and 1927 as he prepared for his inaugural one-person show in Brussels. It follows him to Paris in 1927 where he joined Surrealists André Breton, Salvador Dalí, and Joan Miró, and made his breakthrough word-image paintings. After returning to Brussels in 1930, he continued to search for new forms of image-making and three years later, began a remarkable series of paintings that make unexpected, often disturbing, and frequently humorous associations between everyday things.
The exhibition ends in 1938, with Europe on the brink of war, when Magritte delivered his noted autobiographical lecture entitled “La Ligne de Vie” (“Lifeline”), during which he assessed his own development and achievements in Surrealism.
Magritte’s innovative image-making tactics during these essential years include doubling, displacement, transformation, the “misnaming” of objects, metamorphosis, and the representation of visions seen in half-waking states.
The exhibition encompasses approximately 118 paintings, collages, and objects, including a selection of photographs, periodicals, and Magritte’s early work in the field of advertising. A richly illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition with essays by Gary C. and Frances Comer Curator of Modern Art at the Art Institute Stephanie D’Alessandro, as well as Michael Draguet and Claude Goormans, Josef Helfenstein with Clare Elliott, and Anne Umland.
The Art Institute has long been a strong supporter of Magritte, beginning with a group exhibition of Surrealist artists in 1949, followed by a major retrospective of his work in 1966. Over the years, the Art Institute has added several important works to its Magritte collection. Among the most notable are those that came from the extensive Surrealist collection of noted poet, arts patron and collector Edward James.
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MoMA presents ‘Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926–1938’ (exhibition, 2013)
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